


A something in the sky

by elentari7



Series: The first rule of flying [2]
Category: Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: (what else is new), ...huh, Benny deserves all the nice things :(, Cas & Jo: stoic pilot buddies, Cas is working on the human interaction, Charlie is queen of the engine room, Gabriel is a Little Shit, I think Megstiel might be my brotp, It works better on some people than others, Stuck on a tin can in space with the same ten people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:00:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4333080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elentari7/pseuds/elentari7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late May - June 2522, POV Castiel</p><p>Castiel gets to know a ship through the people who call her home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Impala has a fondness for misfit toys

By the time three days have passed Castiel realizes he’d underestimated how insular this ship would be.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to strike up a conversation with someone when you’re all confined to the same limited metal container in the midst of a void, but somehow Castiel’s managing to fail at it. Molly and David are wrapped up in each other, and shy in the way of the not-yet-world-weary to boot. Linda and Kevin are very much a family unit, and keep to themselves. While the mother is perfectly polite, she is very reserved in everything except care for her son; the son in question is nervous to the point of fidgeting more than he speaks. However much Castiel keeps an eye on them both, Kevin avoids it and Linda merely stares him down. Castiel is not intimidated, of course, but he isn’t even certain intimidation is her object. Her eyes tell him nothing.

The point is, Castiel can never have a proper conversation with any of his fellow passengers. He can never really integrate, or learn anything personal, because if they’re not in their self-made family units they’re in a communal setting with the crew, and the crew are a puzzle unto themselves.

Castiel can’t gauge them as a group—they’re sometimes close and casual, sometimes as disparate as can be. There is an undeniable familiarity among them, not to mention an utter lack of formality; but there is undeniable tension as well. The captain, Castiel notes, bears this the most. Dean Winchester is by turns warm and snappish with his crew, by turns nervous and distant with his passengers. Castiel doesn’t know what to make of his nervousness when it’s different for each of them: a little jovial with Molly and David, a little avuncular with Kevin, a little cowed by Linda (which, Castiel supposes, he understands). As for himself, Dean seems as unsure what to make of Castiel as Castiel is of him, though he never holds eye contact long enough to telegraph much of anything.

Castiel thinks the captain may have something to hide, but also that it’s a good idea to steer clear of one-on-one conversation with him until he’s settled down. Unless this borderline paranoia turns out to be his normal state, which is possible. A Firefly makes an excellent smuggler’s ship, after all.

As for Dean’s employees, Benny is hardly unapproachable—has what Castiel supposes would be called charm when he does speak—but with the strangers on the ship is merely polite; Meg usually has a smile for Castiel but it is not one calculated to make him comfortable; Jo spends most of her time alone, Castiel knows not where (probably somewhere he isn’t allowed to go); and Gabriel…Castiel is still working on what to think of Gabriel.

Charlie seems by far the easiest to approach, so Castiel approaches her first.

 

***

 

She’s in the kitchen when he finds her and says he wants to talk to someone.

“Is something wrong?” She drops the cans back into the box she’s been rooting through and looks ready to hurry around the counter before he stops her. Her eyes have gone wide and her bright red eyebrows are pinched together.

“No,” he assures her. “I’ve just been unsuccessful at talking to people so far.”

She blinks a few times. Then she bursts out laughing.

“Like, ever, at all? Or just on this ship?”

He’s slightly thrown by the laughter, but he gives the question his full consideration. He doesn’t want to start off on an unobliging note. “I don’t think I talk much to people without reason. I meant on this ship, because I’ve tried and it’s been harder than I thought.”

Charlie winces a little. “Uh, sorry.”

“What for?” Castiel cocks his head in confusion. Seconds ago she was laughing, and seconds before that she was worried. He cannot figure out her thought process.

“I didn’t mean…I’m sure it’s not you. Or lack of practice. That’s not what I meant to imply.”

“I think it’s because I’m the only one here by myself,” Castiel says bluntly. “Conversation is much more comfortable between people with established relationships.”

“Okay. Fair. But you know it’s also good for _establishing_ relationships.” Charlie hops up onto the counter and swings her legs over to his side. She continues before Castiel can question how sanitary this is. “Let’s establish!”

“All right.” Castiel hesitates, unsure of how to go on. There haven’t been any topics opened for discussion yet and he can’t think of a response to Charlie’s latest words that makes sense. He decides to wait for her to continue.

“...Okay, I see why you’re having trouble.” Charlie crosses her dangling legs at the ankle and leans back on her hands. “How about this—how’re you getting along with Impala?”

“With the ship?” She’d personified the ship in their very first conversation, but it still struck him as odd.

“Yeah. I mean, you’ve established a relationship with her, right? Right there at the docks, something clicked.” She grins, somewhat smug, swinging her legs. “Or you wouldn’t have come along.”

“My reasons for travelling are my own,” he says quickly, but Charlie herself precludes further prying, raising her open hands and shaking her head.

“Everyone’s are,” she says sagely. “But, y’know, you’ve had a few days hanging out with Impala on your own, so, what do you think now that you’re getting to know her?”

Castiel is a passenger, not allowed to pry into the ship’s inner workings and on board for only three days as yet; he can hardly be expected to make more than a cursory assessment of the craft. “I don’t understand the question.”

Charlie leans back again, regarding him thoughtfully. “You don’t, do you.” After a moment’s consideration she hops down from the counter. “Right, I’m gonna get you properly introduced, c’mon.”

“Where to?” He freezes in surprise when she tugs at his coatsleeve.

“The engine room, where else?”

“I thought we weren’t allowed back there.”

Charlie does not seem to care any more about rules during a journey than she did while still grounded. “Pshaw. It’s my engine room, what I say goes.” She tosses her bright hair back and assumes a rather ridiculous pose. “You may address me as Your Majesty.”

Castiel’s brow furrows. Charlie chuckles and pokes him between the eyes, which startles him too much to scrounge up any sort of reaction. “You do that a lot, y’know.”

“I—?” Castiel rubs at his forehead, the shock of her touch still itching on his skin, but it only makes her laugh again. He lowers his hand, squares his shoulders. “I thought the captain used ‘your highness’.”

Charlie is briefly surprised out of her laughter, though really, it shouldn’t be surprising that Castiel is neither blind nor deaf, but it is quickly replaced by a sly grin. “Oh, Dean’s in denial.” She grabs Castiel’s arm. He has to consciously repress his automatic startle reaction enough to allow her to drag him along. “He’s gotta maintain some illusion of authority on this boat.” She pats the wall of the corridor fondly.

“Is that…difficult?”

“Like herding cats. Watch the steps!” Castiel stumbles down the stairs after her into the steady thrum of the engine room. The small space is warm—the air, the rusty color of the walls, the machinery and metal—and the overall effect on Castiel is slightly claustrophobic. “Welcome to the beating heart. Say hi!”

Charlie, clearly unbothered by the confined feeling of the room, strokes the stationary axle of the main rotor as if it were a lapdog. At her pointed glance, Castiel reaches out to rest his own hand on the humming metal. He’s beginning to wonder how normal it is for people to show so much physical affection for their ship.

Perhaps it’s just Charlie. He’s noticed, when the crew are all in a room together, that she gives a lot of hugs.

“Anyway, you’ve met us all,” Charlie goes on, picking up the thread of conversation again once he’s greeted Impala to her satisfaction; “we ain’t exactly birds of a feather.”

“So instead you’re…cats.” Castiel has had few personal interactions with animals, and the disparate metaphors clarify little and are becoming hard to keep straight.

“Yup. Never all going in the same direction at once.” Charlie is flitting around the room, running her hands over panels and removing some to look underneath; she doesn’t appear to actually change anything, but the process of checking seems natural, automatic, to her. “Except when we need to do some fancy flying. Then we are a well-oiled machine.”

Fancy flying. “You do that often?”

“Um.” Charlie turns quickly to another panel and busies her hands. “Not—we don’t have a whole lot of need for it on this ship. Sometimes—tricky landings, or takeoffs, like the Eavesdown docks! Those were a nightmare to get out of, could you tell, they always are…One time,” she adds, “not on Persephone, but, we were chased by Reavers.”

Both are silent for a moment. Castiel doesn’t ask how long ago it was, and can’t tell from her expression; the fear of what would happen if crazed cannibalistic marauders of mysterious origin were to board one’s ship is not one that fades over time.

She shakes it off quickly. “Yeah...that was a wild ride. But Jo’s a marvel and I’m a wizard, so. Together we’re unstoppable. Had ’em outmaneuvered by a mile.” She hoists her smile back into place, and reaches around Castiel to fiddle with something whose purpose he doesn’t know; he steps back to try and get out of the way and ends up sitting on the steps. He does his best to make it look intentional. “We’ve got the magic, when we need it. The rest of the time…we’re, well, us.” She shrugs. “It’s not like Dean can really complain, he’s the grumpiest tomcat of them all.”

Castiel has to assume that tomcats display sometimes strange, sometimes nervous, sometimes snappish behavior. “Is he always like this, then?”

“Hey, Dean’s a great guy.” Charlie plops down on the step below him, an open box full of bundled wires and blinking lights in her hands. She keeps fiddling while she talks, apparently unaccustomed to complete stillness. “Seriously, sometimes it’s buried a little deep, but he’s good, he loves Impala, he takes care of her and all of us, he can be actually too soft-hearted for his own good sometimes—I mean, God knows where I’d be without him. On the run from the law by now, probably.” The thought seems to make her suddenly uncomfortable; her hands stop moving in the box’s innards. “He’s just…it’s been tough lately.”

Castiel tries to assess her pause as she chooses her words. Is it personal difficulty she doesn’t want to share with a stranger? Business-related? She’s already fed his vague suspicion of the kind of business that might require evasive maneuvers, though that needn’t imply anything more serious than minor smuggling (or even a legitimate deal with a particularly irritable contact gone sour). “This is our first job in more than a month,” Charlie finally explains, looking up from her abandoned wiring. “So there were a stressful few weeks there. And then four deliveries in one run is a longer job than we normally do. And now we’ve got passengers as well, so he’s gotta behave himself. And Gabe did good business on Persephone, which, well, after that he’s the opposite of helpful at keeping the cap’s blood pressure down.”

Castiel has met Gabriel all of once, but he feels immediate sympathy for Dean.

 

***

 

Successful conversation has proved, as Charlie claimed, effective at establishing a relationship; she and Castiel talk every day now. But he’s found that a certain type of silence is effective too--in a certain type of relationship.

Castiel hasn’t returned to the engine room since Charlie first showed him around, not having been invited, but he’s found himself taking minutes alone with the ship anyway. Sometimes he sits sinking into one of the plush, worn seating banks lining the mess area, eye fixed on a detail of the room (to the increased blurriness of everything else), feeling the distant hum of the engine more than he hears it. Sometimes he finds a darkened corner--not anywhere outside passenger boundaries, he hardly wants to lose trust before he’s had a chance to even begin cultivating it--and tucks himself into it and is still, which lets him hear more of Impala. He can think of no actual point to the activity, and never quite does it on purpose, and tends to stop when he catches himself. It isn’t as though he can hope to understand or learn anything this way. It's not like he _needs_ time to settle down and relax. Perhaps too much conversation with Charlie is making him irrational.

He doesn’t always mind, though, and Impala seems indifferent.

 

***

 

An unforeseen downside to Charlie being so willing to talk to him is her wanting him to talk to her.

“You’ve sat down with Impala. We’ve talked about me. We’ve even gossiped about everyone else.”

He looks up from his lunch at her across the kitchen table, where she’s plopped down and crossed her arms on the tabletop expectantly. “You told me about yourself only by allusion to Reavers and a possible misspent youth. And the only thing I gathered about the others is that apparently they’re cats.”

“Well, they are.” He’s learned, through conversation with Charlie, that she periodically just does not make sense. He’s given up asking her to explain her references. She nudges him under the table. “But anyway, it’s your turn. Deep dark secret. Embarrassing baby story. Random trivia.”

He settles his hands in his lap. “I don’t talk about myself.”

“Never?” Another nudge, gentler. “Not your hopes and dreams? Not your past?”

“I don’t have dreams for my future. It’s not mine to decide. I do what’s necessary as events come and go.” He doesn’t intend to go on, because evasiveness and lying are two different things with which he is not equally comfortable, but Charlie is clearly waiting, undeterred, for the second half of his answer. “I don’t want to have a past, here.”

That really isn’t a lie.

Charlie seems to understand it that way, at least, and doesn’t press for details. “I get that. ’S that why you’re headed all the way out to the Rim with no clear aim? You don’t have to explain everything,” she adds hurriedly, “reasons are your own and all, but it’s okay, you know. Most of us here are much happier with our present than we care about our pasts. Impala’s good to us misfit toys.” Her smile is encouraging, hopeful. But she did say he doesn’t have to explain.

He focuses on something else instead. “Now you’re toys.”

Charlie laughs, and steals the last of his lunch.


	2. The Trickster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Impala is an escape

Castiel first meets the passenger rich enough to rent out a whole shuttle at the communal table, as Dean predicted. He comes to the first dinner. His name is Gabriel. He’s a Companion.

“Prefer women, but I’ll swing any old way you pay me to and have a good time.” Gabriel winks at Castiel across the table. “Nice thing about working on the move—less competition, can be more picky.” Castiel has never stuttered in his life, but he will admit to having trouble thinking of a response.

The captain appears to be accustomed to this kind of thing from Gabriel, but it does nothing to lessen his irritation. “Gabe,” he barks from the other end of the table. “Basic rule. Terms of contract. Thousandth time. Crew are off-limits and _no molesting the passengers_.”

“I’m leaving the married ones alone!” The Companion flashes a mischievous grin at the newlyweds, causing Molly to put a mock-protective arm around her husband. “Kid’s too young for me.” He flicks a hand at the red-faced Kevin, whose expression seems to be unable to decide whether to be mortified, relieved, or indignant and so has gotten stuck in between. “And mama bear scares me.” Linda nods serenely as she continues to eat, unperturbed. “So that leaves baby blues over there.”

“But you’re not denying the molesting bit,” Charlie points out.

“Which is the important bit, really,” Jo adds seamlessly.

“Aw, he doesn’t mind, do ya?” Castiel still hasn’t come up with a good response to Gabriel’s rakish wink, so he just continues cutting up and chewing methodically at his food. This only serves to delight Gabriel further. “Man, you are wound tighter than a jack-in-the-box. You oughtta loosen up a little! My door’s always open.”

Castiel’s confusion deepens—he can feel his brow furrowing and he can see Gabriel’s lip twitching in gleeful amusement at it and he can understand the captain’s irritation—but everyone else seems to be in perfect understanding. Kevin turns a deeper shade of red, which Castiel hadn’t been sure was possible, and his mother pats him on the back. Jo buries her face in her hands. Meg wolf-whistles, Charlie fails to restrain an inelegant snort, Benny’s eyes are trained on Dean. The captain’s eyes are narrow and his jaw set in an expression of anger that looks just slightly ridiculous. He slams his chopsticks down on the table. “Gabe, if you can’t lay off you can leave the gorram table—”

“Touchy, touchy. What crawled into your cereal and died this morning?” Gabriel stands, his cheer apparently undented, as Dean’s knuckles turn white on the edge of the table. Jo and Benny are both eyeing their captain now, telegraphing stand-down signals as hard as they can. Castiel wonders whether such a reaction is the norm or if the captain is indeed particularly touchy today. To the new passengers at large, Gabriel says “Seriously, as long as you knock first. There’s tea and it’s perfectly safe, I do actually play by the rules.” And with a last wink in Castiel’s direction, he sweeps in his lazy finery from the room.

 

***

 

Castiel takes the Companion up on his invitation—the offer of tea had been honestly made, and he intended to assess every crew member anyway. He’s already spoken to Charlie, the most receptive, and it wouldn’t be sensible to turn down an actual invitation. When he has nothing better to do, which doesn’t take long given the common-areas-only rule and the insularity of the other passengers, Castiel makes his way up to the shuttles. He knocks at the door of the port shuttle and waits.

He’s met with silence. He tries once more, before reaching out to open the door himself.

It is locked.

He narrows his eyes. He’s at the wrong shuttle, but why keep it locked? There's ostensibly nothing for anyone to find in there. And the captain is quite serious about the common-areas-only rule.

He crosses to the starboard shuttle and knocks and hears Gabriel’s irrepressibly perky voice tell him to “Come in!” so he does. The entrance to the shuttle is framed within by velvet drapes and strung with a bead curtain. The rest of the shuttle, Castiel notes as he pushes through the beads, scanning the space automatically, matches—one would hardly think this were part of the same rusty industrial ship, so completely has the shuttle itself been covered in one lavish fabric or another. Having taken in the transformed space in a glance, Castiel directs his attention to his host—

—who is naked in the middle of the room.

Gabriel cocks an eyebrow at Castiel over his shoulder, water dripping down his back from the sponge he’s been using to bathe. “Well, hello, trench coat. Please, make yourself at home.”

Castiel does not stutter. He does not. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“I told you to loosen up, man.” Gabriel stoops to wet the sponge in the bronze bowl on the table and Castiel starts. His eyes dart from point to point around his host, skittering away from the man himself. “I did say come in.”

“I’ve come at a bad time.” Castiel feels the bead curtain against his back. “Excuse me.”

He can hear Gabriel’s laughter halfway back to the passenger dorm.

 

***

 

The next time Castiel sees Gabriel it's because he doesn't show up to dinner. Castiel notes the absence, but the crew seems unconcerned; the passengers follow suit, and the slightly increased stiltedness in conversation between crew and passengers goes unremarked upon for the length of the meal.

Castiel has just moved to help clear the table when his empty plate is plucked from his hands and replaced with a full one. Meg's smile glints in her eyes like a blade. "Take that over to Gabe, wontcha, bright eyes? Can't go starving our ambassador."

Castiel accepts the plate and the task with a stiff nod, which only intensifies Meg's smirk.

He prepares himself before knocking this time, but Gabriel is clothed. More than last time, at least; Castiel is fairly certain he hasn't anything on under that robe. "Hey, it's tall dark and handsome!" Gabriel's smirk could give Meg a run for her money. "Didn't scare you away yet? That's a good sign."

"I--" Castiel's eyes narrow as he parses that remark. "That was a test?"

"It's an effective one." Gabriel shrugs unrepentantly. "Always good to suss out how people are gonna be around me. Especially the ones with the most negative initial response."

"I meant no offense."

"It's ok, reactions to a Companion in the wild tend to be polarized."

"I have nothing against Companions, or the Guild," Castiel insists. He has never been good at expressing himself on such matters. He's rarely had occasion. "It's an honorable profession. I just...wasn't expecting...you."

"I don't bring the profession much honor, do I?"

Castiel meets his eyes. "I'm not in a position to judge."

Gabriel's smirk spreads slowly into something more genuine. He immediately compromises Castiel's relaxation, though, by following up with "Oh you're gonna be fun."

Castiel has no idea how to respond to this, so he doesn't. He holds out Meg's plate. "I was sent to bring you dinner."

"Thanks, sport." Gabriel takes the plate and digs in, keeps speaking through a full mouth. "Mmmm, protein."

"Why didn't you come to the kitchen?"

"Didn't feel like putting on pants. Dean gets all grumpy when that happens in the common areas."

"I didn't get the impression that you cared about making people uncomfortable."

Gabriel laughs out loud at that. "You got me. Time and place, though. If I didn't know how to judge that, I wouldn't be making any money." His tone is flippant, but Castiel gets the sudden and distinct impression that Gabriel sees more than he ever lets on. It seems obvious, upon reflection; the man is a trained Companion. Castiel's never thought of that profession as connected to the automatic guardedness, the subtle and constant effort of dissimulation, with which he himself is familiar. (He hasn't thought of that profession much at all.) But he recognizes it now in Gabriel. What can Gabriel see in him?

"From what I've observed," Castiel continues as normal, "conversational discomfort at dinner isn't contingent upon your presence."

"I do distract. There are benefits to fearing no awkwardness." Gabriel swallows an oversized mouthful. "No one's much in the mood to talk about themselves, are they?" He meets Castiel's gaze, and sincerity again tinges his expression. "You're welcome to, though. Here. Everyone does. I could make more money charging these wackos for talk therapy than I do screwing for credits." Castiel suspects the latter involves more of the former than the Companion is letting on. And that he's being tested again, with a kind offer crassly made. "They know I won't spill any of the important stuff."

They study each other. Neither blinks.

"Thank you. I'll remember that."

 

***

 

It takes almost a month for Castiel to return; they've made two stops and the young married couple have been dropped off on Newhall, and he's seen and interacted with Gabriel plenty in mixed company if not one-on-one. Return he does, however. He is not expecting to meet Dean coming out of Gabriel's shuttle.

Dean, apparently, was not expecting to meet Castiel coming in, because his immediate response is hostility. "The hell are you doing here?"

"Taking Gabriel up on his invitation." Castiel frowns. "Aren't you?"

"None of your business." Thinking on that answer, Dean turns an unflattering shade of red. "That's not--"

"You're right. My apologies. I've no right to pry into your business with your tenant." Castiel is sincere; he has yet to see the captain particularly happy with anyone, but he doesn't want to be on his bad side. "Or your talk therapy."

Dean is saved from spontaneous combustion by Gabriel's hand on his shoulder. "Cassie! Good to see ya."

Castiel frowns at him. "That's not my name."

"Your virtue's intact," Gabriel says to Dean, ignoring the interjection. "No stain of suspected debauchery on your rep. C'mon, have you met this guy?"

"It's none of his business," Dean repeats.

"'Course not. Doctor-patient confidentiality, what kind of a therapist do you think I am?"

Dean does not seem mollified, and storms off with a glare at both of them.

Gabriel sighs into the silence left in Dean's wake. "Come on in. Don't mind Dean, his macho insecurity flares up like teen acne when he's stressed."

"I thought he'd established pretty clearly that you're not professionally involved with anyone on this ship." Castiel follows Gabriel into the shuttle. "...Macho insecurity?"

"Yeah, normally it isn't a big deal that he'd bone a guy as soon as a girl, and everyone _knows_ he’s reeeeally big on the not-sleeping-with-the-resident-Companion _anyway_ , but," Gabriel shrugs. "Well, speculating on the history of his inadequacy triggers would be in breach of confidentiality."

"And confiding his sexuality isn't?"

Gabriel snorts. "That's not a secret."

Castiel sits on the velvet-covered couch Gabriel waves him over to, startling a bit when he sinks right into it. He considers Dean's stress. A lot of people have been mentioning that it's higher than normal. Perhaps it's connected to Benny's impassivity and Jo's reserved treatment of strangers and Kevin's twitchiness; Castiel has no way of knowing whether they were like this before he met them. 

"How about you, then?" Gabriel breaks into his thoughts, setting a clean cup before him and pouring the tea. "What brings you here today?"

Castiel opens his mouth to speak, and can't. He came to unburden himself--as, perhaps, had Dean--but he doesn't know how. Not while still protecting himself as far as he must. He wonders if that’s irony, coming to talk about problems you can’t talk about because not being able to talk about them is driving you crazy.

Gabriel waits. He keeps silent. Castiel is mildly shocked.

"I don't like keeping secrets," he says at last.

"Mmm, no, you strike me as the kinda guy who's always just himself."

"I'd like to think so." He stares into his cup of tea, aware of Gabriel's eyes on him--of the genuine openness and receptivity to others which is nevertheless a mask. "But I can't _tell_ people everything about me."

"That's not required for being yourself." Gabriel shrugs. "I mean, look at me." He slurps inelegantly at his own tea. "Keeping secrets, sharing yourself with someone without ever giving yourself away--s'all part of the Companion package. I left Sihnon to slum it out in the black because I do wanna be able to be myself, and the Guild...well, it's too strict for some." He's contemplating his own teacup now. Castiel wonders who he's thinking of. "Now everything about me doesn't have to be controlled. If I tell them everything's in order, as far as they're concerned, it is."

"But you do it anyway." Castiel studies him. "Keep controlled."

"My own way. Which involves significantly more swearing and a much better sense of humor. ...but yeah. Maybe I'm stuck in that rut a little.” Gabriel raises his teacup to him. “Here's to the two of us."

Castiel hesitates before nodding in acknowledgment. It leaves him feeling oddly lightened.

"The way I think of it," Gabriel goes on after a contemplative pause broken by tea-sipping, "everyone's entitled to their secrets. What hurts a person are lies." He settles back into his chair. "It's hard for people to lie to me, but I'm not here to _make_ anyone tell me anything. As long as what they do tell me is the truth. So." He looks Castiel directly in the eye. "Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me the truth."

Castiel realizes, with some surprise, that he has in fact not lied to Gabriel, and that he does trust him with what he’s said.

 

***

 

A few days later Castiel is the one to get caught in the bucket-of-water-from-above trap Gabriel sets in the common room, about which Dean yells for nearly an hour. Gabriel only laughs and bows theatrically to the gathered crew, who attempt to remain unamused but are weak from deep-space boredom, and lets Dean get it out of his system. He sends Castiel a wink.

There are, Castiel considers, still sopping wet, different kinds of trust.           


	3. The Hotshot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Impala is a haven

Jo is the one he asks about the locked shuttle, because as the pilot she’s the one he can give an innocent reason for asking.

“We’re not allowed onto the bridge,” he tries to explain, “and there’s little to do…it would be impractical to fly, of course, but it’s been a long time since I’ve even sat in a cockpit.” Her eyes are still narrowed, more quizzical now than suspicious. “I was hoping I could do so without bothering anyone.”

“You’re secretly sentimental?” Her smiles always look like she’s taking care to restrain them. “Wouldn’ta pegged you as that kind of guy, to be honest.”

“I’m not sentimental,” Castiel begins, but finds himself at a loss for evidence to continue the argument. Admitting to curiosity about the locked shuttle would hardly make her more amenable to letting him, a stranger, open it. Missing the feeling of flight is something she’d be much likelier to be sympathetic to—and he does miss it. He’s never liked having to spend a voyage buried in the body of a ship, never a glance at the path before them laid out through the black and the stars. He’s gotten used to it over the years, of course; and still, he realizes, he doesn’t like it. That’s sentiment. Perhaps he is sentimental.

He frowns. Sentimental is not something he should be.

“No shame, you gotta be a little bit in love with it to make a life drifting in the black.” Jo’s secret smile grows a little wider. “I mean, you’ve met Charlie.”

He nods solemnly.

Jo suppresses a chuckle, but doesn’t break eye contact. “You a pilot yourself, then?”

“I’m a competent flyer.”

“And you’re shipping out in a passenger berth on an old freighter?” She tilts her head as she considers him. “How long’s it been since you’ve flown?”

“Too long,” Castiel says, with complete sincerity.

They let the silence stretch for a minute. Castiel waits for her to break it.

She sighs. “I don’t make the rules, Castiel, it’s not in my jurisdiction. I just steer this tub. Captain’s been in a bad enough mood lately.” Castiel is aware of this. That’s why he isn’t asking Dean. Jo gives him a semi-apologetic shrug and a consolation: “At this point the dust in there’d probably choke you before you could get to the cockpit.”

 

***

 

It’s the first conversation Castiel has with her one on one, and the last for some time. They’re in the same vicinity often, but never alone; when she wants to be alone, as far as Castiel can tell, she’s on the bridge. She is confident and sharp at all times, but only ever easy with her crew. She softens for Dean, occasionally, when he’s not looking; he in turn sometimes slips into an elder-brotherly tone when she’s in the mood to let him get away with it. Otherwise, Castiel notes, she withholds herself from people even as she projects confidence and wit. Though he’s never seen her be less than ruthlessly competent, Jo holds herself like a person who’s lived most of her life with something to prove.

He does not expect to find out what she was proving anytime soon.

 

***

 

Their next conversation doesn’t occur until he is once again in the engine room on Charlie’s invitation. The reason given for the invitation is that he “looks lonely,” which is ridiculous when on a ship with nine other people, “come spend some quality time with Impala! Doctor’s orders.”

He accepts, or rather obeys, the invitation, though he isn’t sure time spent in the engine room can be defined as quality time for him and Impala. They have a rather wary relationship in that particular space.

Charlie, of course, may as well live there, greeting everything she touches by name and chatting with it as she makes sure nothing’s wrong.

He isn’t expecting to be joined on the engine room steps by Jo. She barely spares him a glance, surprised as it is, on her way in. “Hey, Chuck.”

“Oh that’s just confusing,” Charlie’s voice comes from under the main rotor. “And no way to address a queen in her domain!”

“Dean’s the handmaiden, sweetie, the rest of us have sworn no fealty oaths.” Castiel frowns—he’s fairly certain the captain identifies as male as one possibly can. Macho, is the word Gabriel used. It’s likely that Castiel’s simply not understanding the reference, which happens frequently around Charlie, and he decides it will be less confusing in the long run not to ask. Jo comes around the side of the engine, leans on the nearest stationary part. Her voice is dry, but Castiel can obliquely see her face, angled down toward the part of Charlie’s body poking out from under the machinery—Jo has a soft mouth and large eyes well-suited to fondness and smiles, as they show now. It might be why at most other times she keeps her features schooled to smirks. “Whatcha up to down there?”

“Just—” Charlie’s boots clatter and scrabble on the grating as she scoots herself out from under the engine “—trying to rewire—oooohhh this is gonna get messy—shift some of the load off the port compression coil. It should hold up out to Qing Long, but I wanna make absolutely sure it lasts until we can replace—Hey!” She scrambles to her feet, swatting Jo’s wandering hands away from her precious machinery. “Hey hey hey. Do I come onto your bridge and fiddle with your tech?”

Jo raises an eyebrow. “Yes.”

“…well, I was invited!”

“Those were extenuating circumstances, we had crossed drive feeds up there.” Both women shudder in unison. As soon as they catch each other’s eyes, though, they snort with laughter. Also in unison.

Better not to ask, Castiel decides again. He’s becoming resigned to this.

Charlie attempts to resume the conversation through continuing giggle fits. “When the jet controls need emergency surgery,” she gasps, “ _then_ I’ll _invite_ you to look over my shoulder while _I_ fiddle with it.” Breath regained, she beams at Jo, who only rolls her eyes.

Her smile is still fond, though.

“All right.” She gives the engine part she’s been leaning against a friendly slap, eliciting an indignant yelp from her mechanic. “I’ll go join my fellow exile.” Castiel blinks and straightens when she settles next to him. He wasn't aware he was an exile. He thinks they might still be working with the queen metaphor from earlier, but he’s not sure.

“I am invited,” he tells Jo, just to be clear.

She shrugs easily. “It’s none of anyone else’s business who Charlie allows into her realm.”

“An exception to the rules?”

“She does that.”

Charlie sticks her hand around the corner of the rotor with a single finger raised.

Jo snorts again. Castiel doesn’t think he’s ever heard her laugh out loud. “Can’t exactly complain. No one runs it like she does, and it’s not my preferred realm anyway.”

“Nor mine,” Castiel admits. He quickly adds, “No offense meant to…Impala.”

Charlie sighs melodramatically from behind the humming metal behemoth, but Jo regards Castiel thoughtfully. “You wanna see it? The bridge.”

Castiel cocks his head at her. “I thought letting people in and out of places wasn’t in your jurisdiction.”

“Well,” she says evenly, standing and offering him a hand, “this place’s mine.”

 

***

 

The tension has drained from her here, until only her poise remains; she sits the pilot’s chair like it was molded for her body. With her eyes trained out the viewport on the bottomless expanse of space, her stillness reminds Castiel incongruously of Charlie bouncing around the engine room—an integral living part of her space. Sitting behind the copilot’s controls, he suddenly itches to reach for them, for that stillness, that clarity of purpose he abruptly misses much more sharply than he’s allowed himself since Persephone.

He keeps his hands clasped in his lap, his eyes on the view. He is in another’s domain.

“Always wanted to be a pilot,” Jo says softly into the silence. “There were people who weren’t too keen on me going the way my dad went, but…flight school was the best thing that ever happened to me. Getting away from all that, getting to see this. Getting to be _good_ at this.” Still neither of them looks at each other. “You?”

“I enjoy the clarity.”

Jo’s smile is audible in her voice. “Best thing,” she repeats. “Well, bar getting dragged onto this boat.” When Castiel glances at her, her gaze is still directed out the viewport and utterly tranquil. She must be formidable at work under pressure or under fire, he thinks. Unshakeable. “Everyone’s got a piece of Impala. I have this.”


	4. The Veteran

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Impala is alcohol-(but not drug-)free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of past substance abuse. (None is actually portrayed.)

The first mate Benny isn’t exactly stony or hostile to conversation—he is in fact quite easygoing, from what Castiel can tell—but Castiel still learns most of what he knows about him through other people.

Castiel would guess that he and Dean have worked together longest—there are times when their mutual understanding seems to obviate the need for words. Benny is sparing with his words in general, though Castiel has yet to hear a sharp or cold one from him; they tend rather toward dry, amused, or exasperated, all leaning easily on each other in his rough-voiced accent.

Benny is watchful where Dean is restless. Perhaps this is why Castiel hasn’t spoken with him personally yet. He isn’t sure what Benny might see up close.

It’s certainly why Benny frequently disappears from a room seconds after Dean does, and often returns at his side. Castiel doesn’t intend to follow them when this happens; being caught in such an action would be rather conducive to hostility and distrust. It’s an honest accident when, about four days after Whitefall, he’s about to walk into the mess area where Benny and Dean are seated alone and hears the latter say, “I need a drink.”

“When the job’s done, brother. Then we can stop somewhere before we look for more work.”

Castiel hesitates, and decides against walking in on this conversation. They haven't heard him yet—walking noiselessly is a habit more than a skill at this point in his life—and Benny’s tone and Dean’s head buried in his hands indicate something not to be interrupted. Dean groans and says “I need multiple drinks, _now_.”

“Not on this ship, you don’t.”

Dean turns his head enough to look at Benny out of one eye. “Hey, drinking on this ship was a time-honored tradition before you came along.”

“Well it’s workin’ out better for you without that tradition, ain’t it?” Benny doesn’t seem to expect an answer. Though Castiel can’t see his face, he’s clearly keeping his eyes trained on Dean as the captain sighs, scrubs his hands over his face, and remains silent. “Almost four years now, you’ve never wanted to go back so much.”

Dean gives him a look that would speak volumes, if Castiel only knew the language.

Benny sighs. “I wanted pullin’ you outta the bottle to be a one-time kinda job.”

Dean snorts. “You know it’s a 24/7 job.” He runs one hand through his hair. The other taps restlessly against his leg. “And not all of us’ve got your willpower.”

“That’s why you got me.” This is where, Castiel thinks, if they were any less close, Benny would clap Dean hard on the back. But Dean registers the intent with a huffed-out laugh without Benny needing to move. It’s the first time Castiel has heard him laugh.  

Benny seems satisfied by this, and stands. He has to press his hands to his knees to straighten up. “After Bobby’s, I’ll cover a round somewhere. _One_.” On his way out of the room (towards the bridge, to Castiel’s relief; being caught now would be frankly embarrassing) he tosses casually over his shoulder, “And if I find a stash again, I’m makin’ you watch while I pour it out.”

“Cruel and unusual,” Dean yells after him, but he’s still smiling more than Castiel’s seen him do since they left Persephone.

 

***

 

It’s only a few days afterward that Castiel learns—again by accident, again through a conversation he’s not really part of—the reason for Benny’s stiffness. It isn’t usually very noticeable; getting up, as he’s noted, and sitting down always require some slight extra support. Only this once does Castiel catch him moving as though movement is painful.

Kevin, the only other person in the room, notices as well. “Did something happen?” The pitch of his voice stays tightly, barely controlled as he asks, “Was there an accident?”

Benny pauses halfway out of his chair. “Oh. Naw, this is years old, kid.”

Kevin appears to relax, as much as is possible given the dark circles under his eyes. They’ve been there every day since Persephone. On top of the wariness and introversion and often rather exasperated attachment to his mother which Castiel has observed in the young man, Kevin seems more tired every time Castiel sees him. He suspects it would be hard to miss even if he weren’t paying attention.

Benny chuckles to cover his grimace as he straightens up. “’Course, I’m pretty sure shellin’ a bunch of browncoats was no accident, anyway. ’Least I survived to feel it.” This draws Castiel’s attention back to him—he’d had no idea anyone on this ship had been involved in the Unification War, most of them are too young. And on the side of the Independents, no less. That is sure to affect the crew’s outlook. He files the information away for later recontextualization.

The mention of shelling, or browncoats, or near-death, makes Kevin twitchy. “Have you tried—” he begins, and Castiel’s attention snaps to him again, but he falls almost immediately silent. He glances over at Castiel, and away again at once when he makes unexpected eye contact.

Benny laughs on his slower-than-usual way out of the room. “I’m on the best we can afford. Just a little late today, is all.”

Both Castiel and Kevin watch him leave the room. Then in the silence that follows, with only the two of them left, Castiel watches Kevin.

He’s not surprised when, after less than twenty seconds, Kevin leaves too.

 

***

 

At dinner a few nights before Newhall, the soon-to-disembark Molly and David are the center of attention. Are they excited? (Very obviously yes.) Are they anxious? (David is. Molly teases him about it.) What are they going to do with their new lives on the Rim? (No one asks _why_ they’re going out to start new lives, even though Molly and David are probably the only ones on this ship for whom that isn’t a personal secret.)

And that’s how the conversation turns to family.

After a brief misunderstanding—over which Gabriel starts up a cheer and demands confetti, Molly almost falls over laughing trying to explain that she’s not pregnant _yet_ , and Charlie is very disappointed about a missed opportunity at godparenthood—Molly turns to a sighing Charlie and asks, “No regular parenthood for you, do you think?”

“I’d have to find the right woman first,” Charlie says airily. 

Jo’s answer is, “There’re enough infants on this boat already.”

Gabriel is asked if his profession allows children. “Well, one—if it doesn’t, screw that. But two—even _I_ don’t hate small children enough to subject one to _me_ during its formative years.”

Meg pushes her plate away, claiming to feel sick at the very thought.

Kevin drops his head into his hands. “I am _not_ old enough for this.”

His mother pats him on the back. “Someday. You can always come to me for help being completely responsible for another human life.” His head sinks onto the table.

Dean, somewhat to Castiel’s surprise, gives a slight smile. “I’m not the settling type.” He doesn’t elaborate on whether he’d be interested in raising a family if he were.

Castiel blinks when it’s his turn. “I’ve…never thought about it.” He thinks about it. “The idea is very strange.”

He’s only being honest, but this appears to provide great amusement for everyone else.

When the laughter clears up, David asks, “What about you Benny?”

The crew falls immediately silent. Castiel notices Dean’s hand tighten around his cup. Benny, however, answers easily. “Been told I wouldn’ be good for a kid.”

“By who?” Molly sounds indignant.

Benny crooks a smile. “Her name's Andrea.”

The passengers finally pick up on the crew’s silence. Benny just keeps going, though. “Long time ago, and she was right about it then.” He keeps eating as well, washing down a mouthful with a gulp from his glass. “And now…well, ’s hard to be good for a kid when all you know’s her name and her birthday.”

“What is her name?” Castiel asks, when the conversation seems in danger of dying out entirely, and finds himself immediately skewered on Dean and Linda’s glares. Molly and David both give him shocked looks.

“Elizabeth.” Benny takes another bite of his dinner, looks up at the now rather uncomfortable couple of the evening. “How ’bout you two, you got names picked out yet?”

The entire table turns a bit too eagerly to debating male and female names, Gabriel lightening the mood by making copious ridiculous suggestions for both (and other, and in-between). Benny smiles, but doesn’t speak for the rest of dinner.

 

***

 

Not long after Molly and David disembark on Newhall, Castiel has a private conversation with Benny for the first time. It is a conversation in the sense that the two of them communicate face to face, not in the sense that they actually say much.

Benny comes into the mess area while Castiel is eating lunch, and heads for the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. Castiel watches him swallow two pills.

“Opioids?” he guesses, and Benny’s gaze snaps to him, narrow-eyed and unreadable. “For the wound.”

Benny continues to scrutinize him silently for a long moment before straightening up with a shake of his head. “For the wound. But opioids,” there’s a dry twist to his mouth around the word, “would be a really bad idea.”

He holds eye contact much better than Dean does, Castiel notes distantly. He thinks of willpower, and survival, and a baby girl named Elizabeth.

It’s the last conversation he has with Benny for a while.


	5. The Muscle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Impala doesn't ask for much

These are the things which Castiel, after nearly a month aboard Impala, knows about Meg:

She has an attitude as welcoming as the business end of a gun, and a smile as sharp as one of her knives.

She directs the smile at him more than she does at all the crew members put together. It’s rather unnerving.

She has a _lot_ of knives.

None of this is to say that she is solemn or stern; her default expression and tone of voice are “deadpan.” It takes him a while to fully understand this.

This tendency is almost weaponized in her relations with Jo, which consist of mutual, silent, highly _competitive_ disagreement—all while not paying much attention to each other at all. Castiel has seen them sit across from one another pushing and pulling a single serving dish across the table through an entire dinner without once making eye contact, talking to other people the whole time. Things like this worry Castiel for a while, but neither woman (nor, indeed, anyone else in the crew) appears at all concerned about it. Meg just seems eternally smug and Jo is eternally stone-faced.

This same default is rather unhelpful in Meg’s dealings with Dean, about whose vacillating tolerance of her she gives no evidence whatsoever of caring. Castiel has counted four times--approximately once a week--that the captain has asked Meg why he keeps her around. It’s rhetorical, Castiel is sure, but Meg always replies with “My winning personality,” and proceeds to ignore Dean’s irritated growling. This strikes Castiel as an odd tactic, given that Dean employs her. Again, though, no one else seems concerned.

He still does not know what her job is.

 

***

 

Fairly early on, just after he first visits Gabriel, she spends the entire day smirking every time he looks at her—a slow, deliberate upwards curl of one side of her mouth, accompanied by the slow, deliberate raising of one eyebrow.

She’s also cleaning and sharpening her knives the whole time.

His suspicion that she knows exactly what happened, including the details of his reaction, is confirmed when—after the fifth time in an hour he looks away from that smirk (he’s never been so bad at holding eye contact with anyone)—she asks, “Something fry a bit of your brain? Give a good shock to the pure and holy system?” Her voice is thick with amusement.

Jo coughs loudly over in the kitchen. Out of the corner of his eye, Castiel sees Charlie elbow her.

“I’m not a holy man.” It’s the only part of what Meg’s said that he can come up with a cogent answer to.

Both eyebrows go up this time. “Damn, and I was gonna call you Shepherd the whole trip. Angel then? You not afraid of falling in with devils, wandering around outside heaven with strangers and Companions? You’ll never get your wings if that happens.”

“…I don’t understand that reference.”

She doesn’t laugh, but her smile widens in a way some might consider intimidating. She finishes stowing her knives and unwinds languidly out of her pillowed seat. “You are too precious, Clarence.”

He again focuses on the part he knows how to respond to. “That’s not my name.”

She bumps his shoulder with her hip on way past. “Sure, angel.”

She continues to call him Clarence at every opportunity.

 

***

 

By the time they reach Newhall he has approached every member of the crew except her and Dean. He’s not putting it off. He would just, given her aforementioned welcoming nature, like to work out how to approach her before doing so, and nonsensical nicknames and predatory smirking are not helpful.

 

***

 

She notices before he works anything out.

“Have you been avoiding me, Clarence?”

He doesn’t like to lie. “What gave you that impression?”

“The fact that we’re halfway to Triumph and this is the first time I’ve caught you alone?”

He looks around. There is no one else in the common area. He is indeed caught. “I’ve been… observing.”

Her eyebrows nearly disappear into her hairline. “You like what you see?”

“I’m puzzled,” he replies frankly, and she apparently finds this hilarious. He really does not understand her. “I’ve been unsure of how to approach you individually. I apologize if I’ve seemed aloof.”

“Okay, first,” Meg holds up a finger, “aloof is your thing, angel, whether you’re trying or not. Bit less now than before,” she allows, before holding up another finger. “Second, _you’ve_ been ‘unsure’ about approaching _me_? Really? It’s like flirting with a brick wall.”

He can feel his spine stiffen. “Flirting.” That puts an interesting spin on the past few weeks.

“Oh, don’t get all prickly. You just make it real fun.”

The comment reminds him ominously of Gabriel. “Then you’re not…”

“A threat to your virtue? I’d say ‘if you want me to be,’ but I think that might just fry your circuits.” He’s not going to give her the satisfaction of being right, he is _not_. “I like you. You’re cute. Unless you piss me off you’ve got nothing to be afraid of. Except embarrassment, that’s too much fun. Besides,” she snorts, “I wouldn’t object if you were interested, but Dean would. He wouldn’t actually fire me but he is just a bundle of puppies and joy to be around when he’s pissy.”

“You’re being sarcastic.”

“You’re getting better at this awareness thing.”

“I assumed that the involvement of literal puppies was too unrealistic. Especially since, according to Charlie, all of you are cats.”

Meg blinks in silence for a moment, and when she speaks again sounds utterly delighted. In her very deadpan way, of course. “Well look at that. You _can_ be funny on purpose.” Her smile widens to show teeth. “Definitely wouldn’t object.”

He isn’t sure if that sets him at ease or not. He knows it probably shouldn’t.

 

***

 

“May I ask you something?”

Meg looks up from her lunch, which she’s eating across the table from him. Somewhat to his surprise, they’ve been doing this quite often since their first talk—spending time together. Conversation with Meg is not always comfortable—she still enjoys calling him ‘angel’ far too much, and he can only imagine how much innuendo he is just missing—but it is blunt and forthright. Silence doesn’t faze her either. She seems content to let it stretch until it makes the other person uncomfortable, and Castiel is more patient and less loquacious than most. Castiel doesn’t have friends, and neither, by her own declaration, does Meg; but he and she are…friendly, now. He’s begun to find her company more intriguing than intimidating.

“Depends,” Meg says in answer to his question. “Are you about to get serious and emotional? Because I just ate, that’s an even worse time for that crap than usual.”

“No. I’ve just been curious as to what your job truly is. Dean is unwilling to get rid of you but you seem remarkably unsuited to public relations.”

She laughs aloud, startling Castiel somewhat—she gives the impression of infuriating amusement almost constantly but is rarely so demonstrative as to laugh. At the moment, though, her whole body shakes with it. “Joke, Clarence. I’m the muscle.”

Ah, that makes sense. Particularly given the crew’s probable shady side business. The look on his face at that thought must amuse her. “That usually gets a different reaction. Especially with Benny hangin’ around in the background.”

“Benny has the capacity to be intimidating.” He’s certainly built to bruise, people could be forgiven for making the assumption without knowing about the chronic pain.

“Eh, he gets a bigger kick outta standing stoically and watching people be surprised that I’m the one with the knife. That’s half the fun of this job, really.”

“What’s the other half?”

That synchronized curve of eyebrow and lip. “Money. I follow orders, I get paid.”

Castiel frowns. “You don’t believe in the orders you follow?”

She snorts. “Have you met me?”

“Yes,” he says bluntly, “and you don’t strike me as being attached to many things. It doesn’t make sense that you would attach yourself to anything you don’t care about.” Her eyes have gone narrow, her face still. “I…have never understood not caring, not believing in the work one is carrying out. I can’t imagine doing that. Why follow orders if you have no conviction that they’re right?”

Meg unfreezes to pull out the smallest of her knives—a short, slender switchblade—and uses it to pick at her nails. “That’s because you haven’t followed orders that let you down yet.”

There’s a note of, not even foreboding, but finality to her judgment.

“And what let you down?” Silence. “If it was something illegal, in the past, you can be sure I wouldn’t—”

“You’ve met me.”

“You keep saying that.”

“How many shits do you think I give about breaking rules?” It takes less than a second’s thought to concede the point. Meg goes back to toying with her blade, flipping it back and forth between her fingers. “Screw legality. What matters is the personal. Losing your reason to get up in the morning--your faith, your cause, whatever.”

“You’re not going to tell me what yours is.” It isn’t a question.

“Pretty _and_ smart.” She flicks her knife closed. “Neither are you.”

Castiel has nothing to say to that.

“People like you and me, Clarence,” and she is always so sure she is right, “we wouldn’t be on this boat if we really still knew.”

He, as far as she knows, is aimlessly wandering the ’verse, and he won’t be able to convince her for her own sake, and they’re…friendly. He doesn’t want to damage that. So he lets the matter drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here ends part 2! Sorry for the snail's pace and the almost complete halt of plot to do character studies, and for the fact that part 3 is not much faster...apparently even when I do manage to come up with a plot I can't write it in a straightforward/timely fashion. :/

**Author's Note:**

> Title once again from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, because I cannot resist an overambitious theme. It'll be my downfall.


End file.
